Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Troublesome Temptresses Tormenting Caped Crusaders

These twin bronze-skinned brunette bombshells certainly carved out notoriety for themselves, both for their wicked works and their more tender side, a side which only the men in their lives saw. Both Talia and the Lo-Lanke were bequeathed with mysterious means of immortality. For Talia, it originated from the Lazurus Pits discovered by her famed father, international crimelord Ra's Al Ghul. For Lo-Lanke, this was through her husband Chang's access to the alien meteorite, named the Green Flame of Life.

While Al Ghul's League of Assassins and Chang's Green Dragon Tong were bent on world domination, as were their masters, these lasses had their own agendas While Talia wasn't an heir sufficient for Ra's to bequeath his life's work to, she was the means to obtain such an heir in the Dark Knight of Gotham known as Batman. Ra's nearly took control of Earth-One, or at least sizable portions of it, on a few occasions... time and again it was Talia who betrayed her father and thus lost the object of his obsession. Lo-Lanke likewise was dispatched by her sire to access and appraise the condition of Chang's rival, Alan Scott aka the Green Lantern who possessed control over the power battery made from the meteorite originally designed by Chang himself.

Seeking the love of Batman, Talia was nonetheless torn by her obligations to stand by her wicked father throughout his various schemes. As such she would never stay long in the company of Bruce Wayne nor his caped alter ego, although time and again she would return in moments of crisis to aid him when Ra's schemes threatened his beloved Gotham.

Similarly, Lo-Lanke was prodded on by conflicting motions of her own, growing increasingly disenchanted by the wayward course of her husband who was now consumed with trying to gain mastery over the emerald energies from the alien rock he had long possessed. Unlike Al Ghul, Chang ultimately perished due to his own folly, leaving his widowed wife now a mortal. What became of her after this encounter is unknown, although she like Talia would find peace away from the fiendish family they both had.